First grow, houseplant style

Germinating the seeds is a true test of my patience. I want to put them in their pots asap but first they need to get a bit bigger. Update Tuesday 19 March: I put them in their pots this evening. I saw roots at the bottom of the smart start germination pots and so, even whilst they weren’t that big above ground level, I felt like I shouldn’t obstruct their growth.

First week had passed since the seeds have been planted. The growth of these plants has surprised me. As I have never grown cannabis plants, nor any other plant, the phenomenon of watching the plant grow from a seed has been fascinating. I have watered them for the first time Friday, just three days after I potted them (and watered the soil beforehand) but that is because I am on a weekend trip. The water didn’t exactly run into the soil immediately, so I hope I did the right thing. On a side note; one of the plants I gave away is/was apparently growing upside-down. A root came out of the ground, going up, but the plant itself went down. How this will be solved remains to be seen. EDIT: Today is Tuesday, and the uploaded photos are of yesterday 25th of March. I left the plants Friday and came back yesterday’s afternoon. I was genuinely shocked by how the plants had changed. To me they grow immensely, even when compared to other grows on this site that receive a lot of nutrients and light. We’re still at an early stadium though so let’s just hope it will continue.

I’ve watered the plants for the second time last Friday (March 29th). The sun was shining so bright and a light breeze made the weather very warm over the last few days, so I’ve put the plants outside during the day. I also felt this could help with the stretching the plants currently seem to experience. They were very top heavy with thin stems, and the lack of steady airflow didn’t incite the strengthening of these stems. I use thin wooden sticks on which the plants are supported to stand up-right. Currently only 1 plant still has a stem that seems in need of support, the others have adapted surprisingly fast over the last three days. Interestingly, two plants have started to produce a very weak smell, which you’ll only notice when you are within 10cm reach of the plants. Upon further inspection I discovered most of the plants start to show their first pistils. A point of attention is the droopiness of the leaves. I suspect I might have overwatered them Friday, as I gave them all a litre of water. I see no point in discontinuing to water them a lot in wide intervals; for now it seems the leaves get less droopy every day and I just see it as a necessary thing. When the droopy heavy leaves will start to stay I will start watering them less but more often.

Plants have again surprised me with their immense growth. We’re at day 21 now, I’ve watered them with all around 1 or 2 ml of calmag supplement. Smell still is barely noticeable. I have them in my room during the night and upon waking up you smell something, but barely. I hope the calmag won’t burn them, as I use tap water which is already rich in calcium and magnesium. I’m now waiting to see what happens and proceed based on the results.

Since the plants have been moved to my own apartment they have gone through tremendous growth. I am wondering whether it is due their natural growth rate at this age or it is because they are now behind windows with +- 7 possible hours of sunlight. It is also became quite apparent from outside that I have these kiddos on my window tills. I’m still wondering whether people will make a fuzz about it and that will get me in trouble. It is only because they have grown quite big signature weed leaves, not because of the smell. Even after a weekend with the doors and windows closed the smell didn’t hit you before you came into 1 meter of range. The Diesel auto looks very different from the GSC Auto and Jack Herer auto, also a lot smaller. The difference in their grow time is just a week according to the web descriptions, and judged on their growth rate of the last week it isn’t that far reached, but it’s still strange to grasp.

Once again I have not seen my plants for 5 days. Those days were extremely hot and sunny though so I expected some growth. But when I came home I was blown away, the plants had grown tremendously. The view from the street side suddenly was overly revealing and thus I have removed them from the window till. This will prove some additional challenges: we now have two rows of plants and parts of their leaves are now in the shadows of the others.

First flowers are in! The summer weather has turned around though, the hours of sun have become quite low. Hopefully the clouds will leave soon. Along with the first flowers, smell has grown as well, and now I hope that this will stay at this level so my neighbours won’t be affected. If it will become worse I’ll have to probably relocate outside although this will also be quite the challenge.

Smell is noticeable now, the moment you walk into the living room. The pistils are forming quite nicely, I find myself staring at them through my ‘microscope’ a bit too often. The fan leaves are also sometimes covering the bud sites; for the time being I either bend them behind or under those. I’d like to refrain from cutting, and only do so when necessary.

Smell is very apparent; after a night with the windows closed the plants can be smelled in other rooms. To make sure I’m not causing any troubles I hopped by my neighbour on the floor below me. Nothing is noticeable though but I hope there won’t be anymore sudden increases in smell as I am not home that often. The mystery diesel seed is also lagging behind by around two weeks, but this was told beforehand. Most important: the sunny weather has returned luckily after having the clouds reign for the last week... here’s to hoping for some solid buds!

Living room starts to smell like a dispensary, but with windows open it’s quickly gone though. Flowers start to develop and pistils are quite long, but still have to swell a lot. Breeder said to harvest within 8-10 weeks but I’m far off of harvest and the 10th week has started. Other growers say that it’ll probably take another 4 weeks. I’ll just have to sit tight and hope it will be ready for harvest in 3 weeks. In 5 weeks I have a vacation planned so I won’t be able to harvest nor burp the curing jars if it takes too long. If you look at the pictures, you’ll see the saddest plant ever. I didn’t water it for 8 days it was very dry, but after watering it in the evening it came back fully!

Smell is strong, luckily housemates don’t mind; one of them even really likes the smell. They go slow, but that’s to be expected without lamps.

They starting to show brown pistils, the finish is near. Temperatures are rising steadily so my housemates sometimes close the curtains to keep out the sun. My plants don’t like it, and to my dislike they forget to open them when they leave the house. Ah well, it’s what happens in a setting like this.

Stupid housemates left the curtains closed over the weekend (whilst they were somewhere else in the country as well), thus plants grew to the curtains for some sunlight. They BROKE! McGyver to the rescue. I tied them up and just hope they won’t die.